The automobile acts like a blindfold, keeping us from seeing our towns, our neighbors, ourselves.

To open our eyes to what’s in front of us, we need to take off the blindfold. We need to remove the cars.

That’s what an open streets event, or CicLAvia, does. And fortunately, there’s one coming soon near you on April 22, Earth Day, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., along a 6.5-mile stretch connecting San Dimas, La Verne, Pomona and Claremont.

Then, mark your calendar. Next, go into your garage and dust off that rusted, cruiser and bring it to your nearby bike shop for a tune-up. You’ll be set to ride, free to feel the wind in your face or stop at whatever catches your eye on a day like no other.

A CicLAvia is not a race. There is no starting line. No finish line. No agenda. It is the only time you find yourself inside a road closure’s orange cones, instead of peering in from the other side in your car.

“They are more than events. These are experiences that make people think about their city in a totally different way,” CicLAvia Executive Director Romel Pascual said.

This will be the 25th CicLAvia the group has staged. They started in October 2010. It’s also the farthest from Los Angeles.

In March 2017, about 100,000 biked or walked the 17-mile “626 Golden Streets” from South Pasadena to Azusa put on by Bike SGV. After that, the most common question put to Vincent Chang, a co-founder of the group, is, “When are you going to hold the next one?”

Pascual said residents of the San Gabriel Valley have been asking for more open streets/CicLAvias for the last four years. With the help of the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments, the organizers secured a $596,000 grant from the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority to pay for the event.

The more I cover these open streets events and participate in them, the more I’ve been listening to what these rides mean to people. It’s more about community, less about riding a bicycle or getting exercise, or even riding free and clear on a scooter, skateboard or just walking down the middle of the the street without any cars.

It’s about gaining perspective.

“Besides what it is supposed to to do — getting people to ride their bikes or skateboards, we hope it introduces people to downtown San Dimas,” City Councilman Denis Bertone said. Bertone will be helping the San Dimas Festival of Arts at its booth and a sidewalk chalk painting demonstration.

It’s about smelling the aroma from a local bake shop. It’s owning “I didn’t know that” moments, like being surprised by the art on an sidewalk utility box, or reading that historical marker on a building that catches you up on the city’s rich past.

Bicyclists gather in South Pasadena before the start of the 626 Golden Streets event on Sunday, March 5, 2017. The event closed off 17 miles of streets between South Pasadena and Azusa for people to ride their bicycle, tricycles, scooters, skateboard, or walk or run. (Correspondent photo by Trevor Stamp)

Without car blinders on, riding a bicycle down a street makes you see places you had no idea existed. On the 626 Streets ride, I met the owner of The Moo on Mission, the new ice cream and coffee place in South Pasadena. Farther down the route, another entrepreneur, a little girl, charmed me into buying a cup of her homemade lemonade.

“It is a very transforming experience. It makes us more human. We feel like we are part of something larger,” Pascual said.

If you don’t live near the route, no worries. Take the Gold Line to the APU/Citrus College station. Bike SGV will host a feeder ride to San Dimas City Hall. Or take Metrolink.

“It is an experience of moving slower than when you’re in a car,” he said. “Where you don’t just see your community but touch it and feel it at the same time.”

Steve Scauzillo covers transportation and the environment for the Southern California News Group and is a recipient of the Aldo Leopold Award for Distinguished Editorial Writing from The Wilderness Society. Reach him via email him at sscauzillo@scng.com or @stevscaz on Twitter and Instagram.

Steve Scauzillo covers environment and transportation for the Southern California News Group. He has won two journalist of the year awards from the Angeles Chapter of the Sierra Club and is a recipient of the Aldo Leopold Award for Distinguished Editorial Writing on environmental issues. Steve studied biology/chemistry when attending East Meadow High School and Nassau College in New York (he actually loved botany!) and then majored in social ecology at UCI until switching to journalism. He also earned a master's degree in media from Cal State Fullerton. He has been an adjunct professor since 2005. Steve likes to take the train, subway and bicycle – sometimes all three – to assignments and the newsroom. He is married to Karen E. Klein, a former journalist with Los Angeles Daily News, L.A. Times, Bloomberg and the San Fernando Valley Business Journal and now vice president of content management for a bank. They have two grown sons, Andy and Matthew. They live in Pasadena. Steve recently watched all of “Star Trek” the remastered original season one on Amazon, so he has an inner nerd.

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